Britain to Admit 50,000 Reich Jews Pending Emigration Overseas

December 19, 1938

PARIS (Dec. 18)

The British home office and Jewish relief organizations have concluded an arrangement for temporary asylum in Britain for thousands of German Jews on the list to receive United States immigration visas, according to reliable information reaching Paris today. They will be rescued from Reich concentration camps immediately and will be permitted to stay in England until their opportunity to emigrate to American comes up in the consecutive-number listing.

There are at present 25,000 Jews in old Germany and 15,000 in former Austria still imprisoned in concentration camps who will be released only if they sign pledges to leave the Reich shortly. These constitute one-third of all the able-bodied Jews in Germany. Many of them are holders of numbers for United States visas which are issued only for the 1939 and 1940 immigration quotas since the present quotas are long since exhausted.

In order to alleviate the plight of these and other prospective emigrants overseas, the home office has agreed to admit them to England immediately as transmigrants awaiting visas providing that somebody in England guarantees that they will not become a public burden and will proceed to their destinations then they obtain their visas. Each guarantor is to fill out a special application similar to the guarantee affidavit of an American for a prospective immigrant and submit it to the home office through the German Jewish committee in London, which operates under the British council for German Jewry. The home office will decide each case within a maximum time of three months.

CORRECTION

Through a misinterpretation of Dr. Maurice B. Hexter’s article in notes and News (JTA NEWS DEC. 16) he was incorrectly reported as saying that Jews might be among the representatives sent by the Arab countries to the London conferences.